Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

By Khaled Yacoub OweisREUTERS • Monday July 1, 2013 6:43 AM

AMMAN, Jordan — President Bashar al-Assad’s forces pounded Sunni Muslim rebels in the city of
Homs with artillery and from the air yesterday, the second day of their offensive in central Syria,
activists said.

They said rebels defending the old center of Homs and five adjacent Sunni districts largely had
repelled a ground attack on Saturday by Assad’s forces backed by guerrillas from the Lebanese
Shiite group Hezbollah, but reported clashes and deaths within the city yesterday.

Mohammad Mroueh, a member of the opposition “Homs Crisis Cell,” said at least 25 loyalist
troops, including four Hezbollah fighters, had been killed in Homs in the previous 24 hours. Such
reports are difficult to verify in Syria, where independent media cannot usually report freely.

The offensive follows steady military gains by Assad’s forces, backed by Hezbollah, in villages
in Homs province and towns close to the Lebanese border.

Opposition sources and diplomats said the loyalist advance had tightened the siege of Homs and
secured a main road link to Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon and to army bases near the Syrian
coast, the main entry point for Russian arms that have given Assad an advantage in firepower.

At least 100,000 people have been killed since the Syrian revolt against four decades of rule by
Assad and his late father erupted in March 2011, making the uprising the bloodiest of the Arab
Spring revolutions against entrenched autocrats.